The Masters - Day 7

14:30:00 Ramona Dragomir 0 Comments

Fu reached the final
The penultimate day of this year’s Masters had finally ended and more surprises were revealed to the snooker fans, as Mark Allen left the competition, as well as Jamie Cope. We had some really nice semis with top class snooker all the way. It was such a pleasure to watch the boys doing what they know best and after some really slow matches during the quarter-finals, this was truly a blessing.


"The flying Dutchman" of snooker, the referee Jan Verhaas was the man in charge so Marco Fu and Mark Allen will play nice snooker :-P. It was the first semi-final of the day and tension was going to reach high levels.
The match was opened by Allen with a break of 70 points, but the next frame was taken by Marco with a break of 82. The 3rd frame was a scrappy one, but the Nord-Ireland boy succeeding in cashing it also, as well as the next one, with a break of 66.
The mid-session interval was about to start and the Hong Kong cue man was being lead 4-1. This wasn’t a pretty picture for him and his fans. But you know what they say - in snooker nothing is for sure until the last ball is potted, and this was one of those cases.


Mark leaves the competition after a wonderful run
Soon after the second session started, Marco fired a wonderful 130 break to win his second frame of the match and so the door was open for his grand comeback. A break of 97 and a spectacular 136 marked "game on" stage, as Fu was now at the same level as Allen (4-4). What happened next was pure madness, as Marco took the lead at 5-4 and put such pressure on Allen’s shoulders that he couldn’t face it, so during the 10th frame, he missed the final green; Marco finished the match with a final score of 6-4. He was in the final! He succeeded in coming back after being lead 4-1 and he didn’t do just that, he also took the lead and ended the match covered in glory! A true professional. :-)


Ding Junhui is focusing on winning
The second match of the day was ref by Michaela Tabb and it featured Ding Junhui on one side and Jamie Cope on the other. This was going to be a blast! :-)
The first two frames were shared as Ding took the first one with runs of 42 and 68 and Cope took the second with a 101 break. But after that was Ding, Ding, Ding all the way to 4-1! The little Chinese won the 3rd frame by hitting in breaks of 54 and 62 and took the last frame of the first session with a wonderful clearance of 102! The power of Asia was ready to fight for a place in the final!


Jamie`s mistakes costed him a place in the final
The second session started with a safety shots battle (only normal, considering the scoreline at that moment), Cope succeeded in hitting a 58 but missed frame ball, so Ding came to the table to steal with a 65 clearance one more victory. However, the youngster from Longton-Staffordshire finally took over the next frame after quite a battle, only to see the next one in Ding’s hands as he hit in runs of 60 and 14. A 73 break brought Jamie a new frame in his pocket the score being now 5-3, but Ding was with one foot in the final.
The 9th frame was dominated by Ding, who hit a 69 and a 58 to end the match with a 6-3 lead. The final was complete - Marco is going to met his old friend, Ding and we are going to serve so Asian snooker tonight :-))
So, here we are the big final. It is a world premiere, as until this moment none of the Masters` finals were disputed between two foreign players. I have to remind you that The Masters trophy was conquered by an "outsider" only four times ( Perrie Mans from South Africa in `79 and Cliff Thorburn from Canada in `83, `85 and `86) so this is something you don`t want to miss! :-))


Ding Junhui v. Marco Fu (FINAL)
14:00 (UK time) - first session
20:00 (UK time) - second session.


Note: the final is played “the best of 19" so the first player to win 10 frames will be declared champion. :-)


TV coverage
14:00-16:45 Masters Snooker (BBC 2)
14:00-17:00 Masters Snooker (British EuroSport 2)
20:00-23:00 Masters Snooker (BBC 2)
20:00-23:00 Masters Snooker (British EuroSport 2)

Online snooker at www.fromsport.com


Enjoy the big final, my dears! :-)

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